aadler | Reading

Yes, today is the release date for Haunted Noble County, Indiana. It's hit the bookseller websites (although not as an ebook yet), and I just received a box of what may or may not be copies of the book, although I've been too busy to actually open it. In my defense I was going to take a video of me opening it, and Emily and I haven't been in one place long enough to do it.

I don't know, maybe it's something else.

Things started going right immediately, starting with a flood of people wanting a signed copy straight from us. That was also something that went wrong because--despite me constantly talking about it online--the date sneaked up on us. As of when I write this, I haven't made arrangements for a local author appearance where I can distribute copies before late September, and there are way more people wanting them than I have time to deliver to.

Which is good, if you think about it. I always worry about whether anyone will want our newest book. This is the twelfth published, and I still have imposter syndrome.

On a related note, I should have gotten another book out earlier, so the book about ghosts and hauntings would be our 13th.

I even went around taking spooky photos to promote the book with. The irony is that the Old Jail Museum--arguably the spookiest looking structure in Albion--has no ghost stories associated with it.

So, what went wrong? There were some personal and family related things that I can't talk about here. I can talk about the prep for my upcoming hand surgery, which will happen on August 18th, and I just realized the joke: I really can't hand deliver the copies.

It's minor surgery, but starting last week I had to stop taking any form of certain pain medicines. Due to the wording on the pre-op papers I was led to believe that meant all pain medicines, including acetomenoph ... aceta ... ac ... Tylenol. Specifically the paper said I couldn't take paracetamol, which is another word for, yes, acetaminophen.

As all fourteen of my regular readers now, I have chronic pain issues. I stopped all meds on the 8th, and the following weekend was really, really rough. On Monday I called the ortho doctor, because all our internet overlords said taking Tylenol was just fine. He said, "taking Tylenol is just fine!"

So I took six, then crushed a bottle full and spread them over my body, then emptied a case full into the bathtub and soaked in it for six hours.

Where were we? Oh, yeah, the book.

Long before all this started, Emily set about updating our https://www.markrhunter.com/ website, so the new book would be there along with links to buy it. You people who want it mailed to you, that's where you can go to make the order and give me your mailing address.

Except Emily realized the entire website had to be completely redone. At exactly the same time her seasonal job is at its busiest. After working on it every spare hour, she punched the domain name transfer request with one day to spare.

Except the domain name transfer doesn't happen in one day. It may, in fact, take several days, and there's no way to rush it. So I don't know when you'll be able to order it, I don't know where I'll be passing copies out, and I have to work this weekend ahead of the surgery.

And there you have it. Both an apology and a sob story, and an epic fail. Whoever knows where I live is welcome to stop by, of course, if you don't mind the clutter, and I'll update things as we go along. But in the end I can only blame myself and my hand, and my back, and sometimes my head.

I WILL keep you updated!

If you can't find it on one of these sites now, you will soon:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Ghosts can’t read, so you may have to read for them.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: various doctor offices

snickfic

On July 26 I saw Liam and Noel and the rest at their second night of five at Wembley Stadium in London, which has a capacity of around 90k and was completely sold out.

( So much more. So much. )

So yeah. Great concert, absolutely mind-blowing tour, my ship has gone from "will they ever speak to each again" to NIGHTLY HUGS AND HANDHOLDING. Everything about this reunion has exceeded my wildest dreams.

pattrose

I hope you're having a kick butt birthday. Eat lots and lots of cake.

Hugs, Patt

snickfic

Meme yoinked from

muccamukk and

sholio, because I can never resist a list.

( big list )

( musings )

snickfic

I have been to the theater a bunch since I got back, and am going again tonight to see Weapons, so before I build up even more of a backlog, here are my latest watches.

28 Years Later (2025). 28 years after the original rage virus that turns people into mindless flesh-eating monsters, a twelve year old boy named Spike leaves his safely quarantined island community and ventures to the mainland in hopes of finding medical help for his mother.

I have heard very mixed reviews of this movie, things like "interesting but messy." I honestly find this a little confusing, because on the whole I found this movie beautifully executed (it's Danny Boyle, after), emotionally coherent, very well-acted, and with only as many unlikely bits as one gets in any zombie/post-apocalypse movie. It's very earnest; I saw someone call it "sentimental, in a good way," which feels about right. I liked the island community, I liked the complicated relationship between Spike, his mom, and his dad. The moments the movie wanted me to find beautiful and moving generally worked for me.

I didn't love it the way some of my friends did; I think it just didn't have enough of my own personal id-bait in it. I thought it was a perfectly competent post-apocalyptic coming of age story, though.

The one fly in the ointment is the ending/cliffhanger, which feels like a visit from the schlockiest era of Mad Max. It's easy enough to just ignore that scene, though, at least until the second movie in the trilogy comes out. IMO this movie works fine without it.

Together (2025). Real-life spouses Dave Franco and Alison Brie star as a longtime couple whose stagnated relationship gets more strained when they move to the countryside, and then things get really weird after they go hiking and fall into a weird hole in the ground.

I feel like this movie knows exactly what tone and mixture of horror, humor, metaphor, and relationship drama it wants and mostly succeeds. Unfortunately that tone didn't really work for me, and I found the main couple annoying, especially Franco's character. Meanwhile the movie is NOT interested in the mechanics or backstory of its horror, fair enough, but those are the parts that I would have been most interested in.

The deal with the third significant character is pretty fun, and I appreciate the foreshadowing. I also appreciate that this is yet another horror movie this year with a casual, unmarked queer relationship in it.

Overall, this felt like a perfectly fine movie that was just not for me.

Strange Harvest (2025). A true crime mockumentary about one man's series of ritualistic killings.

If "Lovecraftian serial killer mockumentary" sends tingles down your spine, then this movie is for you. I would not say it does a lot over and above that description, but the slow unspooling of events and the eventual reveals (which mean more to us horror aficionados than to the people being interviewed) are all very solidly written. It also manages to be quite gory, which I feel is impressive given it's literally all shown via photographs and video taken after the fact. There's one particularly grisly kill that is not like anything I've seen before. Plus, you have to be charmed by a movie so indie that the guy playing the serial killer is also the production designer.

Watching this, I wondered why there aren't more horror mockumentaries. They feel like probably just one step up from found footage in terms of budget and complexity (okay, maybe two steps), and they allow for a lot of the same kind of storytelling. I would absolutely watch more of this kind of thing. (Any recommendations? I've seen Lake Mungo, and that's about it.)

Anyway, this movie is a solid example of the kind of thing it is, which happens to be a thing I like. If you watch it, be sure to stick around through the end credits for the little stinger.

pattrose

This community is so fun. You won't be sorry if you join in. Signups will start on September 1st.

ozma914

Okay, a few quick writerly things:

Haunted Noble County, Indiana is still up for pre-order at a price of $21.99, and will be officially released August 12th. If you want a signed copy from us let us know. I'm starting to get the idea that we didn't order enough, but we can get more sent fairly quickly. If you buy it elsewhere and want it signed--have a pen with you! (Kidding--we'll have a pen.)

We hope to plan some book signings for the rest of the year, and I'll post them as soon as they're confirmed. At the moment there's a slight and not dangerous medical thing to take care of, before the schedule is set.

We do plan for an author appearance September 20th at the Fall Celebration in downtown Albion (Indiana). We ordered more copies of Storm Squalls and The Notorious Ian Grant, so there should be enough of all our books.

Speaking of author appearances, I've contacted the Noble County Library about doing one sometime this month. I haven't heard back yet, but we've been up to the main branch in Albion twice before, and they've treated us very well. One was, sadly, disrupted by a sleet storm, but we don't get those often in August.

Remember Radio Red? You can be forgiven if you don't. It's a romantic comedy, published by Torrid Books in 2017. They were taken over by Start Romance, and since then the book has languished from a lack of promotion (which after eight years is understandable) and a lack of ever having its price reduced (which in my opinion is not understandable).

Our attempts to get the rights back to the Storm Chaser books took many months. To my shock, my request for a reversion of rights in this case got a response in only a couple of weeks. So one of our fall and winter projects will be editing, reformatting, and re-releasing Radio Red independently, with a new cover.

Not that there's anything wrong with the old cover; it just doesn't belong to us.

Our other fall and winter writing projects include a Storm Chaser prequel, a Hoosier Hysterical sequel, and (finally!) finishing our photo book about the Albion Fire Department, as well as continuing to submit to publishers and literary agents. I'm betting there'll be a blog, too. Like this one.

You can preorder, order, and generally make contact here:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: If you support your local author, it's a good mark in your book.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Haunted Noble County
Current Music: Scooby Doo theme

frogfarm

Updates and posts in general have been getting more infrequent. And while probably very few of my AO3 readers actually read this journal, I'll just put it here for general consumption that all my fanfic progress has been going slower this year. Luckily for me, it's for good reasons and other things I enjoy. Unfortunately for my small number of readers, that doesn't show any sign of changing soon. Right now my hope and plan is to finish one other project in the next couple of months, which should free me up to put some focus back on the Portal/Terminator crossover, which is still my main interest -- not to mention the post-Predator story from Anna's perspective, the epic Xena wank short sequel that focuses on side characters instead of the main ones, the Knight Rider reboot pilot episode screenplay, and maybe even the semi-original City of Heroes story.

Fingers crossed. Thanks for your interest in my humble creations.

snickfic

At long last I have been reading again! A tiny bit, mostly on airplanes!

Wild Spaces (2023), SL Coney. A boy's grandfather unexpectedly moves in and disrupts the boy's contented family life; also the boy might be turning into a monster.

I hated this! Unreservedly! This has pretensions of being literary, the kind where nobody gets a proper name except the dog, and the focus is entirely on small, sad family drama seen through the eyes of someone too young to correctly interpret all the details. The fact that the grandfather eventually turns out to be a shapeshifting eldritch horror who murders the boy's parents and his dog did not make me like it any better. Then the boy, who inherited the eldritch shapeshifter gene, murders his grandfather and reflects he is now alone in the world, an inhuman monster with only a transforming revived dog for a companion. Okay!!!

Deeplight (2019), Frances Hardinge. Born and orphaned on one of hundreds of islands who used to worship sea gods until the gods all killed each other a few decades prior, youngster Hark is determined to save his friend(?) Jelt from himself, the law, criminals who are rightfully angry with him, and being transformed into something unimaginable, all whether Jelt wants to be saved or not.

On one hand, I found the toxic friendship at the center of this story pretty difficult to read. Jelt is such a manipulative asshole, and there was so many points where I just wanted to get Hark away from him. OTOH, the execution is very strong, and I think it's probably a really good theme for kids to read about and think through, so A+ there.

But really what I am here for and the reason multiple people have recced this to me is the stuff with the sea gods, and friends, that stuff is very good. The gods when they lived were all enormous, all different, all awesome and horrible in their own unique ways, and I loved everything about them and how they played into the story. Hardinge's worldbuilding never disappoints, and it's fantastic here while also tying into bigger themes that feel very salient. But mostly: fucking amazing eldritch horrors.

In terms of sheer joy the story brought to me, this is probably now my second favorite Hardinge after Cuckoo Song.

snickfic

Due to the one-week delay, I was out of the country for the entirety of the Summer of Horror anon period and barely managed to even comment on my own gift, must less read anything. I'm hoping to go through and read some other things this weekend. In the meantime, here'd what I wrote and received!

Received:
A Small Price to Pay by

StopTalkingAtMe, Re-Animator, Dan/Herbert, 5k. Dan gets impregnated by an eldritch tentacle from another dimension, and Herbert tends to him through the aftermath. So many good Herbert character notes here!! And Dan being an excellent damsel in distress, as always. <3

Wrote:
clean and warm and green, Stardew Valley, Willy gen, 1.6k. I love the apocalyptic vibes in the game the first time the green rain falls, and I really enjoyed taking those to a horror place here.

blood like rot, Dracula Rising (short film), Iosif/Vlad, 2k. The canon is a 10-minute animated prologue to some Dracula TV series adaptation, but the animated bit stands alone pretty well and is very pretty! In the US you can watch it on Youtube after "buying" it for $0. I picked it up in order to write this pinch hit, which is general/liege loyalty kink to the max (as is the canon, for that matter). If that's your thing, you might enjoy this.

ozma914

So, is anyone thinking of buying a copy of Haunted Noble County, Indiana directly from us? I was just wondering how many author copies to order; it can get a little expensive on the front end.

******

I did an interview with a Fort Wayne news station a few years ago, and just discovered that, without my knowledge, it went all over the country. It appears to be from a syndicated news source, and I gave up keeping track after finding them everywhere from Vermont to West Virginia to Missouri.

It starts with a little segment about Halloween then goes to me, which is pretty cool. Here are some examples, but no need to click on more than one: They're all the same video. I thought it would be fun to list them, then stopped after I realized how many there were.

https://www.wave3.com/video/2023/10/26/21country-haunted-noble-county/

https://www.wvva.com/video/2023/10/26/21country-haunted-noble-county/

https://www.wlbt.com/video/2023/10/26/21country-haunted-noble-county/

https://www.ky3.com/video/2023/10/26/21country-haunted-noble-county/

https://www.kctv5.com/video/2023/10/26/21country-haunted-noble-county/

https://www.wsmv.com/video/2023/10/26/21country-haunted-noble-county/

https://www.fox8live.com/video/2023/10/26/21country-haunted-noble-county/

https://www.fox19.com/video/2023/10/26/21country-haunted-noble-county/

https://www.wcax.com/video/2023/10/26/21country-haunted-noble-county/

I didn't realize at first that the screen shot I took of of the video looks almost exactly the same as one I took of the original last year.

I know what you're thinking: How much attention did that bring to your books, Mark? None, that I know of. The thing about promotion and publicity is that only 5% of it actually works, and no one knows which 5%. So authors have to continue to give it their all in the hopes of keeping the balance sheet in the black, and that's pretty much the same for all small businesses.

It's one reason why so many authors still submit to traditional publishers. They don't do all the work, but they do a lot of it--in return to taking a much higher percentage of the sales. Meanwhile, the author still has to do a lot of promotion.

This is why many good writers choose not to publish at all.

You can preorder, order, and generally make contact here:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Ghosts can’t read, so you might have to read for them.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: TV

catchyerselfon posting in

summer_of_giles

Title: I Look To You To See The Truth

Author: catch_yerself_on (geminis-cold-takes on tumblr)

Pairing: Giles/Jenny, Giles & Buffy, Buffy/Angel (briefly), Willow & Xander, Giles & Buffy & Willow & Xander

Setting: Season 1 of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, 1x12 “Prophecy Girl”

Word count: 1,313 words

Rating: PG/FRT, nothing more adult than you’d see or hear in season 1!

Summary: The Spring Fling (in June) dance at the Bronze. Jenny makes a move on Rupert. The Slayerettes gain a new member. Willow’s over her suspicion and totally shipping Giles with Jenny. Giles frets over what the Hell happened to Buffy and he wants answers without prying too much. Xander has a breakthrough: a semi-annual moment of self-reflection. Angel bows out at the right time.

Future Chapters: Buffy’s temporary burst of strength from the Master killing her and Xander reviving her is fading fast. It scares her, but not as much as she fears being vulnerable to either life-changing event ever again.

Also, the teens and their Grown-Up Friends try to hang out before Buffy leaves for the summer, without getting interrupted by demons or near-death experiences. Forget it, Willow, it's Sunnydale.

This summary reflects the first chapters I’m posting - 1 & 2. I'm editing chapter 3 (Giles & Buffy-focussed) and I’m working on chapters 4 & 5, which take us outside of Sunnydale High. Those will be updated on AO3 and my Tumblr - yes, I'm embarrassed I didn't finish the entire thing in time.

Reading Link on AO3

captainskyson posting in

summer_of_giles

Title: Forgotten
Author:

Skyson
Characters: Buffy Summers, Rupert Giles, Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris, Anya Jenkins
Setting: AU Season 05
Rating: FRM/Mature
Pairing: Buffy/Giles
Word Count: 9,567
Summary: No one remembers who Buffy is... but the fun of freedom of anonymity quickly wears off.
She seeks out the help of the guy she knows best who can, and Giles manages to surprise her with some other perks of anonymity. Apparently she doesn't know him as well as she thinks after all... but she's going to.
Notes: An eleventh-hour addition to Summer of Giles (unintentional and literal... it's 11pm where I am as I add this to Ao3 haha), this fic popped into my mind this morning and I spent the day writing it. As such, any missed grammar mistakes etc within are entirely my own.

📖 Reading Link (Ao3): Forgotten

snickfic

AKA Movies I Watched On the Plane to Slovenia. In order of how much I liked them.

The Amateur (2025). After his wife is killed by terrorists and his bosses at the CIA refuse to do anything about it, computer nerd Charlie (Rami Malek) sets out to get revenge on them himself.

This is by far the most movie-like of these movies. It has a solid thriller structure and decent cinematography, and most importantly it has Malek, who is fantastic. Plus, who doesn't want to to root for the underdog? On the other hand, the espionage scene in this movie has a few too many gentlemen in it: gentlemanly CIA ages, gentlemanly terrorists. By the end this tipped over from charmingly quaint to silly. It also has way too few ladies in it, by which I mean there are four total and three of them end up dead. And it was very confused about what it wanted to say with its revenge plot, with an ending I found pretty unsatisfying.

Trap (2024). Cooper (Josh Hartnett) takes his daughter to a pop concert but then realizes the police are using the concert to trap a notorious serial killer, ie him. The first of my accidental Shyamalan double feature! This is directed by M. Night and features his daughter Saleka as the pop diva.

This movie is very silly. The basic premise of a psychopath trying to escape a concert without his daughter realizing anything is wrong was good fun, but most of the plot developments strain disbelief or just make no sense. Then they do actually get out of the concert venue in the third act, which means instead of the gimmicky premise the movie is having to stand entirely on the strengths of its plotting and character work, which are not up to the task. Cooper gets only the laziest of psychological development or motivation, and Hayley Mills (!!) as the FBI profiler leading the efforts to catch him is severely underused.

The worst thing about the third act, though, is that the daughter fades completely out of the picture, and we are supposed to care about first the pop diva (??) and then Cooper's wife (???) and their respective relationships/interactions with him. The wife in particular is a total curveball; she's had like two lines before she suddenly becomes the lynchpin of the final act. The pop diva, meanwhile, just can't act. And also I don't care! I thought this movie was going to be about Cooper and his daughter, what the fuck!

To me the piece of writing that typifies this movie is the FBI profiler saying towards the end that nobody could have noticed Cooper's psychopathy except maybe a parent. Meanwhile, Hartnett has spent the whole movie playing this character as only barely hinged.

The Watchers (2024). A young woman in Ireland named Mina agrees to drive a parrot to a neighboring city, gets lost in a wood of cosmic horrors, and ends up joining a group of other survivors trapped in a structure where creatures come to "watch" them every night. The second in my Shyamalan double feature, this was directed by his daughter Ishana Night.

Where Trap was silly, this movie is nonsense. Yes, these are meaningfully different in my head. 😅 This movie has greater ambitions, but its ideas are so scattered.
• It’s basically a creature feature, but the creatures are faires. Sure, okay.
• The main character Mina has an identical twin named Lucy, but this Dracula reference adds absolutely nothing.
• There are a lot of different instances of the theme of mimicry or likeness, but this doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Mina’s emotional struggles or arc.
• The bird is a plot macguffin that hangs around most of the movie doing nothing and then leaves the narrative in the third act. (It’s alive and fine, though.)
• Like Trap, this movie eventually loses interest in its “trapped in a location” premise and wanders off to finish its story elsewhere, at which point the momentum and tension come to a screeching and permanent halt.

I’m reminded of Cuckoo, another indie horror movie with maybe more ideas than it knew how to execute, but Cuckoo looks like a screenwriting/directing/editing masterclass compared to this. Which is unfortunate, because IMO the cast was pretty good, and the cosmic elements could have been really cool and weird in the right hands.

All that said, I’m interested to see what Ishana Night Shyamalan does next. This was bad, but it wasn't boring, and I definitely did not guess where it was going.

gaiarheahera posting in

summer_of_giles

Christmas in July!

Title: Mistletoe
Author: gaiarheahera
Pairing: Giles/Cordy
Setting: Season 5 Buffy/ season 2 Angel
Word count: 210 words
Rating: g/frc
Summary: Magical mistletoe catches a couple at Christmas.

AO3 link here.

gaiarheahera posting in

summer_of_giles

Title: Fun in the Sun
Author: gaiarheahera
Pairing: Giles/Cordy with Xander/Anya
Setting: Between season 4 Buffy/ 1 Angel and season 5 Buffy/ 2 Angel
Word count: 796 words
Rating: g/frc
Summary: Cordelia convinces Giles to spend the day at the beach. What could go wrong?

AO3 link here.

On All My Motions

“All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.” – C.S. Lewis

Reading

It's Release Day! Sort Of.

OASIS CONCERT

Happy Birthday SpikedLuv

MCU Stuff I Have Seen

more new horror movies

Its almost time again. I can't wait.

Book Notes. No, There's No Music In Them

Letting the days go by

Books

Summer of Horror

Haunted Video From Coast to Coast, Almost

FIC: I Look To You To See The Truth (Giles/Jenny, Giles & Buffy - PG/FRT) - Chapter 1

FIC: FORGOTTEN (GILES/BUFFY) R/FRM

Movies: The Amateur, Trap, The Watchers

Fic: Mistletoe (Giles/Cordy - G/FRC)

Fic: Fun in the Sun (Giles/Cordy - G/FRC)